Canada. Winter. They’re synonymous.
Here in Maritime Canada, we had our first big snow fall last Wednesday. 15 cm worth (6 inches for anyone not on metric units). It was enough to cancel school. At about 10 am the skies cleared and it was a beautiful, gorgeous day.
It was one of those kinds of days where you almost don’t need a coat. Even if you are out shoveling snow. One of those kinds of days when the snow is perfect for rolling into giant snowballs. Perhaps for a snowman?
Nope. Not in my backyard.
We go big. Igloo big.
Like a good relationship, like a strong building, an igloo starts with a solid foundation. I start rolling snowballs and I roll them until I can’t roll them any more. If I’m lucky, I can time the end of the roll so the ball is precisely where it needs to be to complete a circle of ginormous snowballs. Balls big enough to make Frosty jealous.
Except, when I decided to “go igloo big” I went too big. This igloo was on par to be a mansion. An estate. Rival the White House itself. So we scaled it down a bit to country cottage size.
It’s still big. But, like I keep telling Crash these days, “If you’re going to do something, do it right so you don’t have to do it again.”
Unfortunately, our perfect snow only lasted so long. After a few hours of rolling snow, the snow started to dry, freeze, and not stick together. That’s when I got a clever idea (they don’t happen often). I got the cooler, filled it with snow, packed it down nice and tight, flipped it over, and out slid a mostly rectangular block of snow. However, even with cleverly shaped blocks, the third layer collapsed not once, but twice.
Knowing the future can work to your advantage. We knew another storm was coming Saturday. So we put our igloo on hold, crossing our fingers that
A) it didn’t completely collapse before Saturday and
B) that Saturday’s snow would be good for building igloos.
That storm came Saturday evening and it came with a vengeance. We woke Sunday morning to 25-30 cm (a foot) of snow. Imagine shoveling snow for 2 hours with your significant other just to clear your driveway! We loved it. Lazy arses Crash and Bang stayed inside drinking hot chocolate and not killing each other.
After we shovelled, Crash and Bang joined us. They did the “Neste Plunge” off the picnic table and cleared some snow from in front of the igloo. DW and I resumed work on our estate. Block by block. Not quite as easy as Lego, but it worked. Finally, the fifth layer closed in the roof. It’s tall enough for DW and I to stand up in together. It’s long enough for us to lay down, too.
The next step will be to build the tunnel door. That’ll be a cinch with our new building blocks. The last step will be to throw snow on top of it to close in the little gaps. Solidify it. Bolster it. It’s the first time we’ve built an igloo at the start of winter. Like the electric blanket on our bed, here’s to hoping it lasts all winter!
*Side note – Crawling into a preheated bed on a cold, blustery, winter night is akin to putting on clothing straight from the dryer.
Here is an excellent page all about igloos. Have you ever built one?
haha, I love this! Thanks for sharing.
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I couldn’t wait to share. Is wrong to do fun things with the kids so I can blog about it later? 🙂 (blog or not, though, this igloo would have been built)
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Not wrong at all!
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I think it is mandatory to build one if you live in Canada. I did see a video once, it took a guy 10 minutes to cut the blocks out of the hard packed snow and build himself a little fortress. 10 minutes! We are like turtles in comparison.
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Yeah, no. I can’t build one in 10 minutes. Or at least not one to withstand the kids. I’ll have to YouTube some igloo building techniques. I may to refine my igloo engineering abilities.
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As I sit here watching the storm outside my front window this reminds me of my childhood! My kids haven’t built an igloo in years. Maybe it is time to convince them to go out and start one! Lol.
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Kick ’em out the door and not to bother come inside until a shelter is built 🙂
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Haha!
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Whoahhh! That.is.a.lot.of.snow.
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I know! Fortunately, where I went to University in Maryland was in the mountains and we got just as much snow. So I’m used to it. Still. it’s waist deep on the kids. I’m going to have dig a path to our neighbors houses again!
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It’s a good work out. Beats running! 😉
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The igloos pics are amazing! Looks like so much fun! Where I live we have NEVER had enough snow to do an igloo. If have enough for a descent snowman every couple of years we are lucky.
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It’s a pretty big igloo. And it was downsized by about 3 feet. The drift the snowplow left at the bottom of our driveway was up to our shoulders (as you can in the pic of DW). It was a lot of snow! If only I could pack it up and send it to everyone who doesn’t get snow!
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Well, dang. That looks like loads of fun, Eric. Not that first image though. Nunh uh. 😉
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It was a blast. I was afraid it was going to be too tall, but it worked out good. The shoveling wasnfun for a few minutes. At least it wasn’t super heavy wet stuff.
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Wow! I don’t think we’d get enough snow in our yard throughout the entire winter to build that. That looks really awesome! (And sounds like quite the workout.)
We had our first snow on Sunday. Nice big, fat snowflakes for about an hour. Nothing stuck, but it was sure pretty to look at.
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We get as much in storm as you get all winter? 😀 It’s pretty cool (frozen, technically). It was a lot of work, but totally worth it.
There’s a saying that goes “big flakes = little snow. Little flakes = big snow. While big flakes are nice, I love the tiny ones better.
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Yep we don’t get snow every winter and when we do, it’s usually one snow with about 6 inches. More likely to get ice!
I hope we get little flakes this week then!
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I WANT ONE!! *insert severe tantrum scene*
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I looked for a box, but I don’t have one big enough to send it in. Sorry man.
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*insert sad face*
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So funny.
We are expected to get big snow this coming weekend and already have our igloo making book out. There is such thing as an igloo making book…lol!
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Well now. That would have been handy last week! Good luck with your igloo!
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While I’ve never built an igloo, I have a time or two, dug caves and connecting tunnels, in the snow that piles up around the driveway when it gets plowed. Quite fun, actually.
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Tunnels are always fun! If we keep getting storms like we just had we’ll build another igloo and connect them with a tunnel.
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We just 3 feet of snow and made an awesome slide for the smaller kiddos. An igloo would be amazing!
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The kids love it. It’s amazingly quiet inside. You don’t realize how insulated igloos are until you’re inside one!
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I’ve always wanted to build an igloo. Unfortunately, Edmonton doesn’t get a huge amount of snow, so we’d have to wait until a really big snowfall.
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We usually have to wait until the snow accumulates enough or get dumped on this year. The neighborhood kids are always impressed. Our kids are like “just another igloo”. 🙂
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So you do it every year with them?
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We didn’t make one last year, but made one the two previous years. So this is our third.
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